First Nations, environmental groups and local governments appeared in the Federal Court of Appeal in Vancouver Monday continuing their fight against the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Read the rest of this entry →

If the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion is completed, it will result in about 400 oil tankers per year passing through Burrard Inlet. Photo by Travis Lupick

by Charlie Smith, The Georgia Straight,August 10, 2017

This morning, two B.C. NDP cabinet ministers outlined steps their government is taking to address public concerns over Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project.

The owner, Texas-based Kinder Morgan, wants to triple shipments of Alberta oil through its system to 890,000 barrels per day. That would lead to a nearly seven-fold increase in oil tankers moving through Georgia and Juan de Fuca straits. Read the rest of this entry →

Several hundred people marched through Fort Langley Saturday to oppose the expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline that runs through Langley.

Organized by groups including the Pipe Up Network and the Kwantlen First Nation, the march headed from the Kwantlen reserve to the Fort Langley Community Hall.

The march paused in the center of the Jacob Haldi Bridge that connects MacMillan Island to the village of Fort Langley. Above the Fraser River, Kwantlen members drummed and sang before the march continued.

Energy economists say that a prolonged slump in oil prices will further slow two proposed pipelines already hamstrung by court challenges and community opposition in British Columbia.

Federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver has maintained that “the strategic need is still there” for both the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain pipelines to go through the province. But the slumping price of oil has caused enough “market instability,” as Mr. Oliver put it, to prompt Ottawa to postpone its budget to at least April.

Analysts say that kind of instability hasn’t yet changed the economic imperative for Canada’s oil industry to open up its first major conduit to Pacific markets, but most agree that a months-long downturn in oil prices could slow investment in oil sands expansion, which in turn could decrease the supply of oil available to any future pipelines.

A Vancouver-area city is asking the National Energy Board to hand Kinder Morgan a bill that could be worth more than $2 million for policing and cleanup costs after pipeline work was targeted by protesters last month.

Environmental activists set up a makeshift encampment in a conservation area on Burnaby Mountain, east of Vancouver, in an attempt to block crews from conducting drilling and survey work related to its proposal to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline. Read the rest of this entry →

Two assaults carried out by RCMP tactical troop while enforcing injunction order for Kinder Morgan, Nov 20, 2014

by Warrior Publications, Nov 23, 2014

Since November 20, 2014, there have been scores of police on Burnaby Mountain, enforcing a court injunction prohibiting people from interfering with Kinder Morgan’s drilling of bore holes. As of Nov 23, there have been over 60 arrests. While the majority of these have been symbolic “voluntary arrests,” some have been the result of aggressive police actions during their crowd control activities.

BURNABY, B.C. – At least a dozen protesters were taken into custody Sunday on a mountain near Vancouver as a demonstrations continued against a controversial pipeline project.

Dozens of people have been arrested since Thursday, when the RCMP began enforcing a court injunction ordering protesters to clear a pair of work sites on Burnaby Mountain, where Kinder Morgan is conducting drilling and survey work related to the proposed expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline.